


the world is ugly (but you're beautiful to me)

by ladyofdecember



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Heavy Angst, M/M, Post-Kingsman: The Golden Circle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-24 04:22:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13205868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyofdecember/pseuds/ladyofdecember
Summary: Set Post-Kingsman: The Golden Circle. Eggsy is having second thoughts about his marriage and his new life and can't help going over and over in his head about his relationship with one Harry Hart.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I greatly disliked the ending of The Golden Circle and barring some great surprise at the beginning of the third movie, that'll probably never change. Therefore, I've decided to write a little "fix-it" to the story, an AU, like many others already have.
> 
> In my mind, Eggsy and Harry have always had these feelings for each other but kept them to themselves. I think this is how they'd deal with them.
> 
> "The world is ugly  
> But you're beautiful to me  
> Are you thinking of me  
> Like I'm thinking of you  
> I would say I'm sorry, though  
> Though I really need to go  
> I just wanted you to know"  
> \--The World Is Ugly, My Chemical Romance

Six months into his marriage to Princess Tilde, Gary Eggsy Unwin was having second thoughts about his decision. More than second thoughts, third, fourth and maybe even fifth thoughts. With very little contact to his former life due to both his relocation and his new, highly guarded celebrity, Eggsy was beginning to go a little mad.

Currently, he sat in one of the many aptly named sitting rooms of the palace staring out at the garden. So lost in thought, he almost didn't hear Tilde's approach.

“Are you okay?” She asked lightly, a small, concerned smile playing across her face. 

Eggsy startled a little and glanced up at his wife, quickly giving her a reassuring smile. “Oh, of course. Why wouldn't I be?”

She beamed at him and he felt a little guilty at the betrayal. He watched as she moved to pick up a forest green bag near the door.

“What's that?” He asked, his brow pinched in confusion.

“I'm going to the King's palace, remember? We talked about this just the other week.” 

Tilde's brow pinched in concern as she studied her husband's face in scrutiny. “Don't you remember?”

“Oh, yes of course!” Eggsy nodded numbly, as he stood to approach her. “Right. The uh... Duke... Christophe?”

“Prince Christophe.” She lightly corrected with a smile. “Are you sure you won't come with me?”

Eggsy seized up though hopefully it went unnoticed by the princess. “You know that I'll just say the wrong thing or... perhaps, make a mess of things. Besides, you're better at this than me. You should go and enjoy yourself.”

As Tilde stared at him, a worried look on her face, he decided to amp up his story. “I've just... been having a hard time with all this publicity, you know? And going out on this trip... “

He didn't even have to finish his statement as she swooped in closer, gentle hand landing on his face in a caring manner, knowing smile tugging at her lips. “I understand.”

It wasn't a lie after all, perhaps just a stretching of the truth. He really did hate leaving the palace, all those paparazzi. It made him paranoid, them digging into his past trying to find out exactly who the new prince was.

“I'll be back in a few weeks.” His wife gave him a gentle kiss on the lips before turning to go, bag slung over her shoulder.

A vacation perhaps they both needed.

…

It was at about 2:36 AM later that night, after much thinking and agonizing and drinking, that Eggsy picked up his phone and dialed a very familiar phone number. Hidden away from prying eyes and ears, he hoped, he swallowed down the nervous feeling in his stomach as he waited for the other party to answer.

The voice on the other end sounded disgruntled and maybe a little tired as he answered. But that didn't matter at all to Eggsy, the man he'd waited months to hear the gentle, lilting voice of again was finally on the line talking to him again.

“Hi Harry.” He replied lamely, unable to stop the voice in his mind from ridiculing how like a teenager he must sound.

“Eggsy?” Harry inquired, confusion evident in his voice. There was some shuffling on the older man's end before he continued. “It's after midnight... what? What is this about?”

Oh.

Eggsy's heart sank as he moved towards the bedroom chambers' window, peering down at the same garden as before. He cleared his throat, tried to sound in control of his emotions, though his inebriated state wasn't helping much. “I uh... just wanted to call and say hello. It's... been a while.”

“Right.”

Eggsy blinked at the tone of the man who was certainly keeping it short and sweet. He was... they were still good friends, were they not? Sure, he'd sort of retreated away from society as a whole the last several months but he never imagined his connection with the older man would ever, could ever be tarnished. Right?

The silence on the other end of the line was driving him mad so he began idly tapping his fingers on the nearby table in distraction. “Uh... how've you been?”

Harry pushed aside the covers of his bed, hand going immediately to his face to rub at his tired eye. When his fingers came in contact with his scarred skin and missing one, he winced, as always. 

He took a deep breath, staring out towards his far bedroom wall and the darkened room all around. “I'm fine. Bit tired. I was asleep after all.”

Sure, he sounded curt and short but really, what did the boy expect? Calling him this time of night and after so long without so much as a how do you do after running off to that god-forsaken country?

Shaking his head in irritation, he quickly cut off any flare up or emotions surrounding the circumstances of the last year here and now. He wouldn't dwell on things that had already come to be.

Eggsy clutched his cellphone in his hand tighter, one of the very few things he'd been allowed to hang on to, that wasn't taken from him in the name of “national security” by his handlers. As a boy, he'd often thought being some rich prince, being royalty would be all glitz and glamour. He'd never expected the loss of privacy and autonomy would drive him so mad.

He glanced towards the bedroom door, worried that his security may be listening in to his conversation but still too sloshed to go and check. 

“Sorry 'bout that. I... “ He all but forgot what he'd wanted to say to the man, too lost in the moment that this was actually happening, that he was talking with the man once more.

He didn't know why he'd avoided calling, just something after the wedding seemed off between them. Hell, at the wedding itself, things had seemed strained.

“Are you okay?” Harry's concerned voice cut through all his internal monologue and quickly to his core. It was an innocent question after all but the younger man couldn't decipher whether there was more to it or not.

He blinked rapidly when he realized his surroundings had gone blurry but that was just because of the tears springing to life in his eyes.

“Eggsy?”

He took a breath, trying to blink back the tears that were coming now and ended up just sort of chuckling. “Yeah, I'm here. I'm... no, not really.” He decided to go with the truth for once.

The kingsman agent kicked back the covers completely, swinging his legs over the side of his bed. He worried at his lip with his teeth, wondering what step to take next. Honestly, he wanted out of this conversation and out now.

He stared hard at his closet door before grounding out. “I'm terribly sorry to hear that, Eggsy. Hopefully things change for you soon. I must go, it's very late.” Harry hung up the call, though continued to stare at his phone in his hand for quite some time.

…

Eggsy stared at his phone, the screen illuminating for a second or two indicating the call had ended. This was absolutely unbelievable! Harry, a man who had been his mentor, his friend, his... well, he didn't really know how exactly to define him. He'd been, at one point, the most important person in the world to him and he'd liked to think that went both ways. But now it seemed he'd really messed up and let their whole dynamic shift and change.

He knew why. Deep down inside, he knew.

Collapsing onto the bed he shared with his wife, realization bloomed deep down in the pit of his stomach, striking him almost like a flame from a match.

He was the reason for Harry's coldness towards him. Of course it was his fault.

He'd married his girlfriend because he'd been so sure that was the thing to do. He'd gotten his friend back from the dead, saved the world (again), lost nearly everyone else he'd cared about in his life and well, what else was he supposed to do?

As he stood in front of the mirror in the dressing room with Harry the day of his wedding, he'd noticed just how perfect the two of them looked. Everything inside of him had felt like it was on fire. He wasn't sure what he was doing, if it was the right decision, he only knew that he had to do something, to keep going, if only for the friends he had lost.

Roxy and Merlin, they had lost their lives in the line of duty, but if they were still alive, they'd surely want him to keep living his, not to mourn or to disintegrate. And so that was exactly what he was doing.

Eggsy glanced at his best man, his best friend as he was straightening his tie in the mirror's reflection. Everything inside him was screaming at him to stop this madness, to sort this whole thing out between him and Harry, to just... be happy with the man. 

When Harry turned to face him fully, the answers he sought about what he should do next had never been clearer.


	2. Chapter 2

“Harry... am I making the right decision?”

The older man blinked at him in confusion so Eggsy pushed onward. “I mean... you can tell me the truth, really. Am I a fool? Should I... is this the right thing to do?”

Eggsy had prided himself on many of his accomplishments while being a Kingsman, the most of which had to do with his ability to read others. They both had this skill, though they never really used it against the other. He watched the slight change in Harry's one eye, the rapid slip-up as it darted away and then back towards his face.

“What do you mean, Eggsy?” Was all he said, skillfully avoiding the question as any good trained spy would. Don't supply information, only obtain more.

He took a deep breath, of course the man wasn't going to let up this game they'd been playing. He stared at his shiny, black shoes. Still, there were doubts in his mind whether it was completely one sided, these feelings he'd been picking up on for quite some time.

Before Harry's unfortunate accident, things had been good between them, amazing even. Even though, they'd never confessed anything, never kissed, never allowed anything to transpire between them, there had been this chemistry, this fire between them. Eggsy felt it and he knew Harry must have, after all, he'd caught the man openly flirting with him on more than one occasion. Why he'd never done anything to act on it? He didn't know.

By the time he'd actually gathered enough courage to reciprocate those feelings, well, it had been too late. Harry had been taken from him.

Eggsy wasn't in denial, he knew that something had changed inside of him that day going forward. Merlin had been particularly concerned about his mental health and well-being, often checking in with him and insisting they spend some time together talking about it. The offer was always shrugged off, of course until it wasn't. Until Roxy died.

When he'd found out Harry was still alive, his heart had swelled in his chest with all the hope and love and dreams he'd thought had been lost before. When it became clear Harry had no such reciprocated feelings, due to his amnesia, it felt like the man had been taken from him all over again.

But still, as they worked together, as he regained more and more memories from his past, their bond remained strong, the feelings between them still there, if only bubbling beneath the surface.

That was why, on the day of his wedding, he'd summoned the courage to ask just one question to the man, just one final question to find out once and for all, just what was going on between them.

“Harry... “ He began, staring deep into the man's eye. “is there any reason you can think of, why I shouldn't walk down that aisle right now?”

Eggsy decided to let the curtain fall, to let his interior show and his vulnerability out finally. He waited patiently for the older man's response, not at all expecting what he got.

Harry shifted his stance slightly, an indication he was thinking of being vulnerable as well. He let his eye roam all over the man's face before squaring his shoulders back again, his perfected signature look sliding into place like the armor of a gallant knight. “No, Eggsy. Nothing that I can think of.”

…

Harry wandered through his kitchen, bathrobe swaying loosely around his bare pajama clad calves. He paused listlessly near the opening to his living room, seemingly lost in thought.

Eggsy's late night phone call had been unexpected and had left him with a sleepless night full of never-ending questions ridiculing his mind.

When the man had decided to marry the princess and become one of Sweden's most famous celebrity, Harry had let the part of himself that still cared for him go. After all, he hadn't many things in life, many people left, except Eggsy and now he was gone too.

Most of Harry's memories had returned after the incident, though some still eluded him, were cloudy fragments of moments that when he focused on too much gave him intense headaches. He tried not to dwell on what that meant. He tried to just “get on with it” as he should, tried to get back to what his life had been before.

Harry wasn't sure he was living up to expectations, after all, who could he ask? Merlin, his long time friend, was gone. And Eggsy, well, a man he had been told he was close to, a man he had fond memories of, well, he was unavailable. He had made his choice after all.

Sinking down into a chair at his dining room table, Harry put his chin in hand as he thought. The eye patch he'd placed over his missing eye many hours earlier was bothering him again. He tried to ignore it, on top of everything else.

He wondered if the younger man would call again. He'd been very short with him, letting his emotions get the best of him when really all he'd needed was a friend to listen to. But Harry wasn't sure he could be that for him anymore.

No, it was probably best to try to distance himself from what would never be. No matter his feelings for the man, he had made his choice and he needed to respect that.

Harry stared at nothing, sitting there in his bath robe, feeling torn in all directions. A man with one foot planted firmly in the past and the other hopelessly in the future. What was he to do?

…

After spending nearly all day wandering the empty palace halls contemplating his actions the previous night, Eggsy was in a complete tailspin.

He felt ashamed for reaching out to his former mentor in such an unprofessional state. Or perhaps it wasn't the booze that had made the action uncomfortable but the vulnerability that lay behind it all. 

Still, Harry hadn't been pleased and had made that very much clear which only furthered Eggsy's homesick woes. He'd spent the day trying to figure out how to make it up to the man but nearly all of his ideas ended with him just giving him space he so clearly wanted.

It was puzzling to him, to see their friendship go so downhill so fast. He could understand that maybe some things had changed due to the distance but after all, they were still the same people. Why was there such a drastic difference now?

Later that night, Eggsy sank down onto his bed in defeat. It didn't matter which way he spun it, he knew the very reasons why there had been such a shift in their dynamic. He couldn't imagine it away, couldn't rewrite the happenings of the last year.

Harry was distant because he thought Eggsy didn't care. Eggsy hid his feelings because Harry seemed either unwilling to return the feelings or completely in the dark about them still. It was a catch-22. 

And so, that was why the man was currently into his second drink of scotch. No reason to keep up appearances, what with Tilde and her parents out of the country, Eggsy allowed himself to sink into depression fully.

He knew it was shameful to be keeping such disturbing thoughts from his wife. He'd wanted to bring up the topic of his distaste for this lifestyle to her many times and many times failed simply due to not wanting to disappoint her. 

Eggsy hated living here, hated being in the spotlight as they were and if he was being honest, hated matrimony. 

But Tilde was sweet, kind and funny and even though his feelings for her had seemed to fade once they left London, he still enjoyed her company and wanted absolutely to keep her happy. How on earth would one ever tell their spouse they weren't head-over-heels in love with them?

Eggsy of course didn't know and so he downed another glass.

It was halfway through his third he gave up any pretenses and grabbed his phone to make another call to Harry. He'd decided that the man was far too uptight, too stubborn to ever reach out and try to make amends, if that were even the issue between them.

There was really only one way to find out and he intended to fix this and fix it now.

Ring-Ring. Ring-Ring.

“Eggsy.” A relieved voice answered, bringing a smile to said man's lips.

“Hiya Harry.”

“How are you?”

The man sounded rather serious, seeming to get right to the point of things which was odd considering it was he who had abruptly ended their call the night before.

Eggsy played with the glass in his hand, unable to hide the cheerful tilt of his voice. “I'm okay. I'm uh... just enjoying some scotch. You?”

Harry was sitting in his living room, a glass of the same next to him. He eyed it with humor, a shared smile on his side of the line as well. “I am as well.”

“I'm sorry that I called you so late last night and... uh... “ He checked the clock on the wall. “I guess I've done it again anyway.”

“It's not too late this time. I'm not that old. I don't go to bed at eleven, you know.”

Quirking an eyebrow and a smirk on his lips, Eggsy replied, “Well, you are getting up there.”

Silence from the other end made him remember the very reason for his call once more.

“Uh... look, Harry. I wanted to bring something up to you. About... well, my wedding-”

“Eggsy... “ The man interrupted suddenly, sounding very harsh though his tone quickly softened. “How is the princess?”

A shrug, eyes darting out towards the bedroom window and then the closed door, as though the security personnel may be eavesdropping. “She's fine. Great. Why?”

“Just curious.”

“Well anyway, about that day... when I asked you... “

Eggsy seemed to lose confidence then, not sure how he was going to continue the conversation.

Harry stared at his scotch glass, not wanting to have this discussion. He quickly took it in his hand and downed it before standing to refill the liquid. “Yes?” He asked the silent other end of the line.

“I... you know, I really miss you.” He decided to change up his tactic. 

'That was... unexpected.' Harry thought, pausing halfway in pouring. 

“Harry?” The voice on the phone asked, a little pitchy for such a usually confident man.

“Yes, I'm here, Eggsy. I've missed you.” He replied, sinking back into his armchair, newly poured scotch in hand. 

Eggsy stood and approached his massive floor to ceiling window, staring down at the grounds, lost in thought. “The palace here is beautiful but... it's lonely, ya know?”

“Hm.”

Another moment of silence passed between them and it was almost too much to bear. Eggsy wanted more than anything to be having this conversation face to face with the man, sitting in his home back in London, not here.

“It is, Harry. Without you here, it's... awful.”

Harry sipped at his scotch, feeling a bitterness creeping up his throat. “I'm sure Tilde keeps you company.”

Ah, there it was. He'd hit a mark with the man finally, getting him to open up and stop storing whatever emotions he held away.

Eggsy sighed. “No, Harry, you don't understand. I don't... she's great but-”

“Eggsy, is there a point to your continuous late night calls to my home or shall we wrap this up?”

He walked back over to his half empty glass and quickly chugged the rest of the fluid in the hopes of giving him liquid courage. “Harry, I wanted you to know that I... I care for you. I know you don't believe me.”

With nothing but silence in response, he forced himself to continue despite everything inside of him screaming not to. “I've... I always have, since the first day we met. Well, not the first day maybe... “ He smiled. “I thought you were kind of an arsehole at first. A little bit.” Eggsy chuckled and on the other side of the line, Harry couldn't bite back a smile as well.

But the older man still said nothing, forcing him to continue. “Harry, I love you and I... I made a mistake marrying Tilde. I know I did. I was just looking for you to say something... anything, to make me reconsider my choice. But you... you didn't say anything!” His voice began to break as tears sprang into his eyes. “Why didn't you say anything Harry?”

Rubbing at his good eye with his hand, Harry took a deep breath, letting it in and out slowly. He shook his head. “Eggsy... you don't know what you're talking about.”

“That's shite! Of course I do! Don't talk to me like that, like I'm some kid, Harry!” He lashed out in anger, eyeing the nearby whiskey bottle in temptation. 

“You don't. Because if you sat down and thought about what you were saying for one moment, soberly, you would realize-”

Eggsy interrupted in fury. “I... this has nothing to do with drinking, Harry! Christ!”

He began to pace around the bedroom, no longer caring if any of the guards heard him or not. “Why do you do this? Why do you want to pretend like... like there wasn't something goin on with us? Is it... your memory? I mean?”

“My memory is just fine, thank you.” He responded in a grave tone.

“Harry... I love you. And... you don't have to do anything, really. Anything at all. You just... I just need to know... “

A beat of silence passed between them, with Harry staring hard at his fireplace and Eggsy paused in the middle of his bedroom pacing.

He swallowed audibly. “Do you feel the same way?”

Harry blinked, eye darting here and there as if doing equations in his mind, trying to solve for x and trying to predict the outcome of some complex problem. Finally, he took a deep breath and said, “Eggsy... of course I do.”


End file.
